SIR THOMAS MORE.
A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.
FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.
XIV.
The following day, toward noon, Thomas More was seated, as usual after dinner, in the midst of his children. No one could discover in his countenance any trace of anxiety. He conversed with his customary cheerfulness. Margaret was a little pale, and it was evident that she had been weeping. She alone kept silence and held aloof from Sir Thomas. Near the window overlooking the garden, on the side next the river, sat Lady More engaged in knitting, according to her invariable habit, and murmuring between her teeth against the monkey, which had three or four times carried off her ball of yarn and tangled the thread.
Sir Thomas from time to time raised his eyes to the clock; he then began to interrogate his children about the work each had done during the morning. At last he called the little jester, who was pulling the dog’s ears and turning summersaults in one corner of the room, trying to make his master laugh, whom he found less cheerful than usual.
“Come hither,” said Sir Thomas. “Henry Pattison, do you hear me?”
The fool paid no attention to what his master said to him.
“Henry Pattison!” cried Sir Thomas.
“Master, I haven’t any ears.” He turned a summersault and made
a hideous grimace, which he thought charming.
“Since you have no ears, you can hear me as well where you are. Understand, then, little fool, that I have given you to the lord-mayor. I have written to him about you this morning, and I have no doubt but that he will send for you to-day or to-morrow.”
Had a pail of boiling water been thrown on the poor child, he could not have jumped up more suddenly. On hearing these words he ran toward Sir Thomas, and, throwing himself at his feet, burst into a torrent of tears.
“What have I done, master?” he cried. “How have I offended you? Why have you not told me? Forgive me, I will never do so any more; but don’t drive me away. I will never, never displease you again! No! no! don’t send me away!”
“My child,” said Sir Thomas, “you are mistaken. I am not at all displeased or vexed with you; on the contrary. You will be very happy with the lord-mayor; he will take good care of you, and that is why I prefer giving you to him.”
“No! no!” cried Henry Pattison, sobbing. “Don’t let me eave you, I implore you! Do anything you please with me, only don’t send me away. Why is it you no longer want me? Dame Margaret,
take pity on me, and beg your father to let me stay!”
But Margaret, usually very willing to do what she was requested, turned away her head and paid no attention to this petition.
“Master, keep me!” he cried in despair. “Why do you not want me with you any longer?”
“My child,” said Sir Thomas, “I am very much distressed at it; but I am too poor now to keep you in my house, to furnish you with scarlet coats and all the other things to which you are accustomed, You will be infinitely better off with the lord-mayor.”
“I want nothing with the lord-mayor. I will have no more scarlet coats nor gold lace; and if I am too expensive to feed, I will go eat with the dog in the yard. You don’t send him away; he is very happy. It is true that he guards the house, and that I—I am good for nothing. Well, I will work; yes, I will work. I implore you, only keep me. I will work. I don’t want to leave you, my dear master. Have pity on me!”
Sir Thomas was greatly disturbed. Alas! his heart was already so full, it required so much courage to conceal the state of his soul, he was in such an agony, that he felt if the dwarf said any more he would be forced to betray himself.
Assuredly it was not the thought of being separated from his jester that afflicted him to such a degree, but the attachment of this deformed and miserable child, his tears, his entreaties, his dread of losing him, reminded him but too forcibly of the grief which later must seize on the hearts of his own children; for the composure which they saw him maintain at this moment alone prevented them from indulging in expressions
of affection far more harrowing still.
“Margaret,” he said, “you will take care of him, will you not?” And fearing he had said too much, he arose hurriedly, and went to examine a vase filled with beautiful flowers, which was placed on the table in the centre of the apartment, and thus concealed the tears which arose and filled his eyes. But the dwarf followed, and fell on his knees before him.
“Come, come, do not distress yourself,” said Sir Thomas; “I will take care of you. Be quiet. Go get your dinner; it is your hour now.”
Sir Thomas approached the window. While he stood there William Roper entered, and, going to him, told him that the boat was ready and the tide was up. More was seized with an inexpressible grief. For an instant he lost sight of everything around him; his head swam.
“Whither go you?” asked his wife.
“Dear Alice, I must to London.”
“To London?” she replied sharply. “But we need you here! Why go to London? Is it to displease his majesty further, in place of staying quietly here in your own house, and doing simply whatever they ask of you? Well did I say that you did wrong in giving up your office. That is what has made the king displeased with you. You ought to write to Master Cromwell; he has a very obliging manner, and I am sure that all this could be very easily arranged; but you are ever loath to give up anything.”
“It is indispensably necessary for me to go,” replied Sir Thomas. “I much prefer remaining. Come!” he said.
“Father! father!” exclaimed all
the children, “we will go with you to the boat.”
“Lead me, dear papa,” said the youngest.
Sir Thomas cast a glance toward Margaret, but she had disappeared. He supposed she did not wish to see him start, and he was grieved. However, he felt that it would be one trial less.
“No, my children,” he replied; “I would rather that you come not with me.”
“Why not, dear father?” they cried in accents of surprise and regret.
“The wind is too strong, and the weather is not fair enough,” said Sir Thomas.
“Yes, yes!” they cried, and threw their arms around his neck.
“You cannot go to-day. I do not wish it,” said Sir Thomas in a decided manner.
Words cannot describe the sufferings of this great man; he knew that he would no more behold his home or his children, and that, determined not to take the oath which he regarded as the first step toward apostasy in a Christian, they would not pardon him. He cast a last look upon his family and hurried toward the door.
“You will come back to-morrow, will you not, father?” cried the children in one voice.
He could not reply; but this question re-echoed sadly in the depths of his soul. He hastened on still more rapidly. Roper, who knew no more than the others, was alarmed at the alteration he saw in the features of Sir Thomas, and began to fear that something had happened still more distressing than what he had already heard. However, More had told them so far that it was impossible for him to be found guilty in the affair of the
Holy Maid of Kent, but Roper knew not even who she was. The absence of Margaret alone seemed to him inexplicable. Entirely absorbed in these reflections, he followed Sir Thomas, who walked with extraordinary rapidity, and they very soon reached the green gate.
“Come, my son,” said Sir Thomas, “hasten and open the gate; time presses.”
Roper felt in his belt; he found he had not the key.
“I have not the key,” he said. “I must return.”
“O God!” exclaimed Sir Thomas when he found himself alone; and he seated himself on the step of the little stairway, for he felt no longer able to stand on his feet.
“My God!” he cried, “to go without seeing Margaret! Oh! I shall see her again; if not here, at least before I die. Adieu, my cherished home! Adieu, thou loved place of my earthly sojourn! Why dost thou keep within thy walls those whom I love? If they had left thee, then I could abandon thee without regret. I shall see them no more. This is the last time I shall descend these steps, and that this little gate will close upon me. Be still, my soul, be still; I will not listen to you; I will not hear you; you would make me weak. I have no heart; I have no feeling; I do not think. Well, since you will have me speak, tell me rather why this creeping insect, why this straw, has been crushed in the road? Ah! here is Roper.”
He at once arose. They went out and descended to the boat. Then Sir Thomas seated himself in the stern, and spoke not a word. Roper detached the cable, and, giving a push with the bar against the terrace wall, the boat immediately
put off and entered the current of the stream.
“This is the end,” said Sir Thomas, looking behind him. He changed his seat, and remained with his eyes fixed upon his home until in the distance it disappeared for ever from his view. He continued, however, gazing in that direction even when the house could no longer be seen, and after some time he observed some one running along the bank of the river, which ascended and descended, and from time to time waving a white handkerchief. He was not able to distinguish whether it was a man or a woman, and told Roper to approach a little nearer to the bank. Then his heart throbbed; he thought he caught a glimpse of, he believed he recognized, Margaret, and he immediately arose to his feet.
“Roper! Margaret! there is Margaret! What can be wrong?”
They drew as near the bank as they could, and Margaret (for it was indeed she) leaped with an unparalleled dexterity from the shore into the boat.
“What is it, my dear child?” exclaimed Sir Thomas, with eager anxiety.
“Nothing,” replied Margaret.
“Nothing! Then why have you come?”
“Because I wanted to come! I also am going to London.” And looking round for a place, she seated herself with a determined air. “Push off now, William,” she said authoritatively.
“My daughter!” exclaimed Sir Thomas.
She made no reply, and More saw that she had a small package under her left arm. He understood very well Margaret’s design, but had not the courage to speak of it to her.
“Margaret, I would rather you
had remained quietly at Chelsea,” he said.
She made no reply.
“Your mother and sisters need you!”
“Nobody in this world has need of me,” replied the young girl coldly, “and Margaret has no longer any use for anybody.”
“Margaret, you pain me sorely.”
“I feel no pain myself! Row not so rapidly,” she said to Roper; “I am in no hurry; it is early. Frail bark, couldst thou only go to the end of the earth, how gladly would I steer thee thither!” And she stamped her foot on the bottom of the boat with passionate earnestness.
Sir Thomas wished to speak, but his strength failed him. His eyes filled with tears, and, fearing to let them flow, he bowed his head on his hands. It was the first time in her life that Margaret had disobeyed him, and now it was for his own sake. Besides, he knew her thoroughly, and he felt sure that nothing could change the resolution she had taken not to leave him at that moment.
They all three sat in silence. The father dared not speak; Roper was engaged in rowing the boat; and Margaret had enough in her own heart to occupy her. She became pale and red alternately, and turned from time to time to see if they were approaching the city. As soon as she perceived the spires of the churches she arose.
“We are approaching the lions’ den,” she cried; “let us see if they will tear Daniel.”
And again she took her seat.
They were soon within the limits of the city, and found, to their astonishment, the greatest noise and excitement prevailing. Crowds of
the lowest portion of the populace thronged the bridges, were running along the wharves, and gesticulating in the most violent manner. This vile mob, composed of malefactors and idlers, with abuse in their mouths and hatred in their hearts, surges up occasionally from the lowest ranks of society, of which they are the disgrace and the enemy, to proclaim disorder and destruction; just as a violent storm disturbs the depths of a foul marsh, whose poisonous exhalations infect and strike with death every living being who imprudently approaches it. At such times it takes the names of “the people” and “the nation,” because it has a right to neither, and only uses them as a cloak for its hideous deformity and a covering for its rags, its filthy habiliments. They buy up its shouts, its enthusiasm, its incendiaries, terrors, and assassinations; then, when its day is ended, when it is wearied, drunk, and covered with crimes, it returns to seethe in its iniquitous depths and wallow in contempt and oblivion.
Cromwell was well aware of this. Delighted, he moved about among the rabble, and smiled an infamous smile as he heard the cries that burst on the air and pierced the ear: “Long live Queen Anne! Death to the traitors who would dare oppose her!”
“And yet men say,” he repeated to himself, “that it is difficult to do what you will. See! it is Cromwell who has done all this. Not long since the streets resounded with the name of Queen Catherine; to-day it is that of Anne they proclaim. What was good yesterday is bad to-day; is there any difference? What are the masses? An agglomeration of stupid and ignorant creatures who can be made to
howl for a few pieces of silver, who take falsehood for wine and truth for water. And it is Cromwell who has done all this. Cromwell has reconciled the people and the king; he has made his reckoning with virtue, and seen that nothing would remain for him. He has then taken one of the scales of the balance; he has placed therein the heart of a man branded and dishonored by an impure passion, which has sufficed to carry him out of himself; the beam has inclined toward him. He has added crimes; he has added blood, remorse, treason; he will heap it up until it runs over, rather than suffer him to recover himself in the least. Shout, rabble! Ay, shout! for ye shout for me.” And he looked at those red faces, blazing, perspiring; those features, disfigured by vice and debauchery; those mouths, gaping open to their ears, and which yet seemed not large enough to give vent to their thousand discordant and piercing sounds.
“There is something, then, viler than Cromwell,” he went on with a fiendish glee; “there is something more degraded and baser than he. Come, you must confess it, ye moralists, that crime, in white shirts and embroidered laces, is less hideous than that which walks abroad all naked, and with its deformities exposed to the bold light of day.”
He looked toward the river, but the light bark which carried Sir Thomas and his party escaped his keen vision: carried along by the force of the current, she shot swiftly as an arrow under the low arches of the first bridge.
“Alas!” said Sir Thomas, “what is going on here?”
He looked at Margaret and regretted she was there; but she seemed entirely unmoved. Margaret
had but one thought, and that admitted of no other.
On approaching the Tower they were still more surprised to see an immense crowd assembled and thronging every avenue of approach. The bridges and decks of the vessels were covered with people, and there seemed to be a general commotion and excitement.
“Thither she comes,” said some women who were dragging their children after them at the risk of having them crushed by the crowd.
“I saw her yesterday,” said another. “She is lovely; the fairest plumes on her head.”
“And how her diamonds glittered! You should have seen them.”
“Be still there, gabblers!” said a fat man mounted on a cask, leaning against a wall. “You keep me from hearing what they are shouting down yonder.”
“My troth! she is more magnificent than the other.”
“They say we are to have fountains of wine at the coronation, and a grand show at Westminster Hall.”
“All is not gold that glitters,” said the fat man, who appeared to have as much good sense as flesh.
He made a sign to a man dressed like himself, who advanced with difficulty through the crowd, pushing his way by dint of effort and perseverance. He seemed to be swimming on a wave of heads, each oscillation of which threw him back in spite of the determined resistance he made. The other, perceiving this, extended his hand to him, and, supporting himself by a bar of iron he found near, he drew his companion up beside him.
“Eh! good-day to you, Master Cooping. A famous day, is it not? All this scum goes to drink about five hundred gallons of beer for the monks.”
“May they go to the devil!” replied the brewer, “and may they die of thirst! Hark how they yell! Do you know what they are saying? Just now I heard one of them crying: ‘Long live the new chancellor.’ They know no more about the names than the things. This Audley is one of the most adroit knaves the world has ever seen. There is in him, I warrant, enough matter to make a big scoundrel, a good big vender of justice. I have known him as an advocate; and as for the judge, I remember him still.” As he said this he struck the leathern purse he carried in the folds of his belt.
“These lawyers are all scoundrels; they watch like thieves in a market for a chance to fleece the poor tradesmen.”
Above these men, who complained so harshly of the lawyers and of those who meted out justice to all comers, there was a window, very high and narrow, placed in a turret that formed the angle of a building of good appearance and solid construction. This window was open, the curtains were drawn back, and there could be seen coming and going the heads of several men, who appeared and disappeared from time to time, and who, after having looked out and surveyed the river and the streets adjacent, returned to the extremity of the apartment.
This house belonged to a rich merchant of Lucca named Ludovico Bonvisi; he was a man of sterling integrity, and in very high repute among the rich merchants of the city. Established in England for a great number of years, he had been intimate with Sir Thomas More at the time the latter was Sheriff of London, and he had ever since retained for him a particular
friendship and esteem. On this day Ludovico had invited four or five of his friends to his house; he was seated in the midst of them, in a large chair covered with green velvet, before a table loaded with rare and costly wines, which were served in decanters of rock crystal banded with hoops of silver. There were goblets of the same costly metal, richly carved, and a number of these were ornamented with precious stones and different kinds of enamel. Superb fruits arranged in pyramids on rare porcelain china, confectioneries, sweetmeats of all kinds and in all sorts of figures, composed the collation he offered his guests, among whom were John Story, Doctor of Laws; John Clement, a physician of great celebrity, and most thoroughly versed in the Greek language and the ancient sciences; William Rastal, the famous jurist; his friend John Boxol, a man of singular erudition; and Nicholas Harpesfield, who died in prison for the Catholic faith during the reign of Elizabeth. They were all seated around the table, but appeared to be much more interested in their conversation than in the choice viands which had been prepared for them by their host. John Story, particularly, exclaimed with extraordinary bitterness against all that was being done in the kingdom.
“No!” said he, “nothing could be more servile or more vile than the course Parliament has pursued in all this affair. We can scarcely believe that these men, not one of whom in his heart approves of the divorce and the silly and impious pretensions of the king, have never dared to utter a single word in favor of justice and equity! No, each one has watched his neighbor to see what he would do; and when
there has been question for debate, they have found no other arguments than simply to pass all that was asked of them. The only thing they have dared to suggest has been to insert in this shameful bill that those who should speak against the new queen and against the supremacy of the king would be punished only so far as they had done so maliciously. Beautiful and grand restriction! They think to have gained a great deal by inserting that, so closely are they pursued by their fears.
“When they have instituted proceedings against those unfortunates who shall have offended them, do you believe that Master Audley, and Cromwell, and all the knaves of that class will be at great pains to have entered a well-proven maliciousness? No; it is a halter that will fit all necks—their own as well as those of all others. I have often told them this, but they will believe nothing. Later they will repent it; we shall then be in the net, and there will be no way to get out of it. Yes, I say, and I see it with despair, there is no more courage in the English nation, and very soon we shall let ourselves be seized one by one, like unfledged birds trembling on the edge of their devastated nest.”
“It is very certain,” replied William Rastal, “that I predict nothing good from all these innovations; there is nothing more immoral and more dangerous to society than to let it become permeated, under any form whatever, with the idea of divorce—at least, unless we wish it to become transformed into a vast hospital of orphans abandoned to the chance of public commiseration, into a camp of furious ravishers, excited to revenge and mutual destruction. Take away the indissolubility
of marriage, and you destroy at the same blow the only chances of happiness and peace in the interior and domestic life of man, in order to replace them by suspicions, jealousies, crimes, revenge, and corruption.”
“Or rather,” said John Clement, “it will be necessary to reduce women to a condition of slavery, as in the ancient republics, and place them in the ranks of domestic animals.”
“And, as a natural consequence, be ourselves degraded with them,” cried John Story, “since we are their brothers and their sons.”
“With this base cowardice in Parliament, all is possible,” interrupted Harpesfield, “and I do not see how we are to arrest it. When they no longer regard an oath as an inviolable and sacred thing, what guarantee is left among men? You know, I suppose, what the Archbishop of Canterbury has done with the king’s approval, in Westminster even, at the moment of being consecrated?”
“No!” they all answered.
“He took four witnesses aside before entering the sanctuary, and declared to them—he, Cranmer—that the antiquity of the usage and custom of his predecessors requiring that he should take the oath of fidelity to the pope on receiving the pallium from him, he intended, notwithstanding, to pledge himself to nothing in opposition to the reforms the king might desire to make in the church, of which he recognized him as the sole head. What think you of the invention of this preservative of the obligations that bear the sanctity and solemnity of an oath made at the foot of the altar, in presence of all the people, accustomed to listen to and see it faithfully observed? That proceeding
sufficiently describes the age in which we live, our king, and this man.”
“But everybody knows very well that Cranmer is an intriguer, void of faith or law,” replied Rastal, “who has been foisted into his present position in order to do the will of the king and accommodate himself to his slightest desires.”
“He has given him a wife,” said John Clement, pouring out a glass of Cyprus wine, whose transparent color testified to its excellent quality; “I verily believe she will not be the last.”
“What kind of a face has she, this damsel Boleyn? Is she dark or fair? Fair, without doubt; for the other was dark. This is perfect nectar, Ludovico! Have you more of it?”
“You are right; she has lovely blue eyes. She sings and dances charmingly.”
“How much more, Ludovico? A small barrel—hem!—of the last invoice? Excellentissimo, Signor Ludovico!”
“Well, we will see her pass very soon; they escort her to the Tower, where she will remain until the coronation. They say the king has had the apartments in the Tower furnished with an unparalleled magnificence.”
“Yes; and to sustain that magnificence he is contracting debts every day, and all his revenues do not cover his expenses.”
“A good king is a good thing,” said Harpesfield; “but nothing is worse than a bad one, and the good ones are so rare!”
“That is because,” replied Boxol, who was very deliberate, “the power, renown, and flattery surrounding the throne tend so much to corrupt and encourage the passions of a man that it is very difficult
for him, when seated there, to maintain himself without committing any faults. Besides, my masters, we must remember that the faults of private individuals, often quite as shameful, remain unknown, while those of a king are exposed to all eyes and counted on all fingers.”
“Well,” said John Clement; “but this one is certainly somewhat weighty, and I would not care to be burdened by having his sins charged to my account, to be held in reserve against the day of the last judgment.”
“Good Bonvisi, give me a little of that dish which has nothing in common with the brouet spartiate.”
“A good counsellor and a true friend,” said John Story—“that is what is always wanting to princes.”
“When they have them, they don’t know how to keep them,” said Ludovico. “See what has happened to More! Was not this a brilliant light which the king has concealed under a bushel?”
“Assuredly,” replied Boxol; “he is an admirable man, competent for, and useful in, any position.”
“He is a true Christian,” said Harpesfield; “amiable, moderate, wise, benevolent, disinterested. At the height of prosperity, as in a humble position, you find him always the same, considering only his duty and the welfare of others. He seems to regard himself as the born servant and the friend of justice.”
“Hold, sirs!” replied Clement, turning around on his chair. “There is one fact which cannot be denied; which is, that nothing but religion can render a man ductile. Otherwise he is like to iron mixed with brimstone. We rely upon him, we confide in his face and in the strength of his goodness; but suddenly
he falls and breaks in your hands as soon as you wish to make some use of him.”
“There must be a furious amount of sulphur in his majesty’s heart,” replied Harpesfield, “for he is going to burn, in Yorkshire, four miserable wretches accused of heresy. For what? I know not; for having wished, perhaps, to do as he has done—get rid of a wife of whom he was tired! There is a fifth, who, more adroit, has appealed to him as supreme head of the church; he has been immediately justified, and Master Cromwell set him at liberty. Thus the king burns heretics at the same time that he himself separates from the church. All these actions are horrible, and nothing can be imagined more absurd and at the same time more criminal.”
“As for me,” replied Clement, who had been watering his sugared fruits with particular care for a quarter of an hour, “I have been very much edified by the pastoral letter of my Lord Cranmer to his majesty. Have you seen it, Boxol?”
“No,” replied Boxol, who was not disposed to treat this matter so lightly as Master Clement, as good an eater as he was a scholar, and what they call a bon vivant; “these things make me very sick, and I don’t care to speak of them lightly or while dining.”
“For which reason, my friend,” replied Clement, “you are excessively lean—the inevitable consequence of the reaction of anxiety of soul upon its poor servant, the body; for there are many fools who confound all and disown the soul, because they are ashamed of their hearts and can discern only their bodies. As if we could destroy that which God has made, or discover the knots of the lines he has hidden! He has willed that man
should be at the same time spirit and matter, and that these two should be entirely united; and very cunning must he be who will change that union one iota. They will search in vain for the place of the soul; they will no more find where it is than where it is not. Would you believe—but this is a thing I keep secret because of the honor of our science—that I have a pupil who asserts that we have no soul, because, says this beardless doctor, he has never been able to distinguish the moment when the soul escaped from the body of the dying! Do you not wonder at the force of that argument? And would it not be in fact a very beautiful thing to observe, and a singular spectacle to see, our souls suddenly provided with large and handsome wings of feathers, or hair, or some other material, to use in flying around and ascending whither God calls them? Now, dear friends, believe what I tell you: the more we learn, the more we perceive that we know nothing. Our intelligence goes only so far as to enable us to understand effects, to gather them together, to describe them, and in some cases to reproduce them; but as for the causes, that is an order of things into which it is absolutely useless to wish to penetrate.”
“Come, now, here is Clement going into his scientific dissertations, in place of telling us what was in Cranmer’s letter!” cried Ludovico, interrupting him.
“Ah! that is because I understand them better; and I prefer my crucibles, my nerves and bones, to the subtleties, the falsehoods, of your pretended casuists. Boxol could tell you that very well; but after all I have been obliged to laugh at the sententious manner, grave and peremptory, in which
this archbishop, prelate, primate, orthodox according to the new order, commands the king to quit his wicked life and hasten to separate from his brother’s wife, under pain of incurring ecclesiastical censure and being excommunicated. What think you of that? And while they distribute copies of this lofty admonition among the good tradesmen of London, who can neither read nor write, nor see much farther than the end of their noses and the bottom of their money-bags, they have entered proceedings at Dunstable against that poor Queen Catherine, who is cast out on the world and knows not where to go. Can anything more ridiculous or more pitiable be found? Ha! ha! do you not agree with me?”
“Verily,” said Boxol, who became crimson with anger, “Clement, I detest hearing such things laughed at.”
“Ah! my poor friend,” replied Clement, “would you have me weep, then? Your men are such droll creatures! When one studies them deeply, he is obliged to ridicule them; otherwise we should die with weeping.”
“He is right,” said John Story. “We see how they dispute and flay each other daily for a piece of meadow, a rut in the road which I could hold in the hollow of my hand. They write volumes on the subject; they sweat blood and water; they compel five hundred arrests; then afterwards they are astonished to find they have spent four times as much money as the thing they might have gained was worth. Why cannot men live at peace? If you put them off without wishing to press the suit, they become furious; and yet they always begin by representing their
affairs to you in so equitable a light that the devil himself would be deceived. There is one thing I have observed, and that is, there is nothing which has the appearance of being in such good faith as a litigant whose case is bad, and who knows his cause to be unjust.”
“Come, my friends,” cried Clement, “you speak well; all that excites compassion. You often ridicule me and what you please to call my simplicity, and yet I see everything just as clearly as anybody else; but I have a plain way of dealing, and I do not seek so much cunning. If God calls me, I answer at once: Lord, here I am! I have spent the nights of my youth in studying, in learning, in comparing; I have examined and gone to the depths of all the philosophers of antiquity, apparently so lucid, so luminous; I have found only pride, weakness, darkness, and barrenness. I have recognized that it was all profitless and led to no good; it was always the man that I was finding; and of that I had enough in myself to guide and support. Then I took the Bible, and I felt that it was God who spoke to me from its inspired pages; whereat I abandoned my learning and all those philosophical wranglings which weary the mind without bettering the heart. I go straight to my object without vexing myself with anything. There are things which I do not understand. That is natural, since it has pleased God to conceal them from me. Evidently I do not need to comprehend them, since he has not revealed them; and there is no reason, because I find some obscurities, why I should abandon the light which burns in their midst. ‘Master Clement,’ they ask me, ‘how did God make that?’ ‘Why that?’ My dear friends, this is just
as far as we know. ‘And this, again?’ This I know nothing about, because it cannot be explained. When our dear friend More read us his Utopia, I remember that I approached him and said: ‘Why have you not founded a people every man of whom followed explicitly the laws of the church? That would have given you a great deal less trouble, and you would at once have arrived at the art of making them happy, without employing other precepts than these: to avoid all wrong-doing, to love their neighbor as themselves, and to employ their time and their lives in acquiring all sorts of merits by all sorts of good works. There you would find neither thieves nor slanderers, calumniators nor adulterers, gamblers nor drunkards, misers nor usurers, spendthrifts nor liars; consequently, you would have no need of laws, prisons, or punishments, and such a community would unite all the good and exclude the bad.’ He smiled and said to me: ‘Master Clement, you are in the right course, and you would walk therein with all uprightness, but others would turn entirely around and never even approach it.’ Therefore, when I see a man who has no religion, I say: ‘That man is capable of the utmost possible wickedness’; and I am by no means astonished, when the occasion presents, that he should prove guilty. I mentally exclaim: ‘My dear friend, you gain your living by selfish and wicked means’; and I pass by him, saying, ‘Good-day, my friend,’ as to all the others. He is just what he is; and what will you? We can neither control him nor change his nature.”
His companions smiled at this discourse of John Clement, whom they loved ardently, and who was a man as good as he was original. A
little brusque, he loved the poor above all things, and was never happier than when, seated by their humble bedsides, he conversed with them about their difficulties and endeavored to relieve them. Then it seemed to him that he was king of the earth, and that God had placed in his hands a treasure of life and health for him to distribute among them. As often as he added largely to his purse, just so often was it drained of its contents; but he had for his motto that the Lord fed the little birds of the field, and therefore he would not forget him; and, besides, nobody would let John Clement die of hunger. Always cheerful, always contented with everything, he had gone entirely round the circle of science, and, as he said, having learned all that a man could learn, was reduced to the simplicity of a child, but of an enlightened child, who feels all that he loses in being able to go only so far.
“But take your breakfast now, instead of laughing at and listening to me,” he cried.
As he spoke the sound of music was suddenly heard in the distance, and a redoubled tumult in the streets. A dull murmur, and then a loud clamor, reached their ears. They immediately hurried to the window, and left John Clement at the table, who also arose, however, and went to the window, where he arrived the last.
“It is she! It is Queen Anne!” was heard from all sides; and heads arose one above the other, while the roofs even of the houses were covered with people.
There is a kind of electricity which escapes from the crowd and the eager rush and excitement—something that makes the heart throb, and that pleases us, we know
not why. There were some who wept, some who shouted; and the sight of the streamers floating from the boats, which advanced in good order like a flotilla upon the river, was sufficient to cause this emotion and justify this enthusiasm; for the people love what is gay, what is brilliant; they admire, they are satisfied. In such moments they forget themselves; the poet sings without coat or shoes; his praises are addressed to the glowing red velvet, the nodding white plume, the gold lace glittering in the sunlight. A king, a queen—synonyms to him of beauty, of magnificence—he waits on them, hopes in them, applauds them when they pass, because he loves to see and admire them.
Six-and-twenty boats, painted and gilded, ornamented with garlands of flowers and streaming banners, with devices and figures entwined, filled with richly-dressed ladies, surrounded the bark which conveyed the new spouse. Anne, arrayed in a robe of white satin heavily embroidered with golden flowers, was seated on a kind of throne which had been erected in the centre of the boat. A rich pavilion was raised above her head, and her long veil of magnificent point lace was thrown back, permitting a view of her beautiful features and fair hair. She was glowing with youth and satisfaction; and her heart thrilled with delight at seeing herself treated as a queen, and making her entry in so triumphant a manner into the city of London.
Her cheeks were red and delicate as the flower of spring; her eyes sparkled with life and animation. The old Duchess of Norfolk, her grandmother, was seated beside her, and at her feet the Duke of
Norfolk, the Earl of Wiltshire, her brother, Viscount Rochford, her sister-in-law, and other relatives. The king was in another boat, and followed close. In all the surrounding boats there were musicians. The weather was superb, and favored by its calmness and serenity the fête that had been prepared for the new queen. Soon shouts arose of “Long live the king!” “Long live the queen!” and the populace, trained and paid by Cromwell, rushed upon the quays, upsetting everything that came in its way, in order to bring its shouts nearer. They seemed like demons seized with an excess of fury; but the eye confounded them among the curious crowd, and the distance harmonized to the royal eyes their savage expression.
Meanwhile, the boats, having made divers evolutions, drew up before the Tower, and Anne Boleyn was received at the landing by the lord-mayor and the sheriffs of the city, who came to congratulate and escort her to her apartments. It would be difficult to describe the ostentation displayed by Henry VIII. on this occasion; he doubtless thought in this way to exalt, in the estimation of the people, the birth of his new wife, and impose on them by her dignity. The apartments in the Tower destined to receive them had been entirely refurnished; the grand stairway was covered from top to bottom with Flanders tapestry, and loaded with flowers and censers smoking with perfume, which embalmed the air with a thousand precious odors. A violet-colored carpet, embroidered with gold and furs, extended along their line of march and traversed the courtyards. Anne and all her cortège followed the route so sumptuously marked out. As she rested
her delicate feet on the silken carpet she was transported with joy, and gazed with delighted eyes on the splendors surrounding her. “I am queen—Queen of England!” she said to herself every moment. That thought alone found a place in her heart; she saw nothing but the throne, the title, this magnificence; she was in a whirl of enjoyment and reckless delight.
* * * * *
In the meantime Margaret and Sir Thomas were also entering the Tower. The young girl shuddered at the aspect of the black walls and the long and gloomy corridors through which she had been made to follow. Her heart throbbed violently as she gazed at the little iron-grated windows, closely barred, rising in tiers one above the other. It seemed to her she could see at each one of those little squares, so like the openings of a cage, a condemned head sighing at the sight of heaven or the thought of liberty. She walked behind Sir Thomas, and her heart was paralyzed by terror and fear as she fixed her eyes on that cherished father.
They at length reached a large, vaulted hall, damp and gloomy, the white-washed walls of which were covered with names and various kinds of drawings; a large wooden table and some worm-eaten stools constituted the only furniture. A leaden inkstand, some rolls of parchment, an old register lying open, and a man who was writing, interrogated Sir Thomas.
“Age?” asked the man; and he fixed his luminous, cat-like eyes on Thomas More.
“Fifty years,” responded Sir Thomas.
“Your profession?”
“I have none at present,” he answered.
“In that case I shall write you down as the former lord chancellor.”
“As you please,” said More. “But, sir,” continued Sir Thomas, “I have received an order to present myself before the council, and I should not be imprisoned before being heard.”
“Pardon me, sir,” replied the clerk quietly, “the order has been received this morning; and if you had not come to-day, you would have been arrested this evening.”
As he coolly said these words he passed to him a roll of paper from which hung suspended the seal of state. Sir Thomas opened it, and casting his eyes over the pages, the long and useless formula of which he knew by heart, he came at once to the signature of Cromwell below that of Audley. He recalled this man, who had coolly dined at his table yesterday, surrounded by his children. He then took up the great seal of green wax which hung suspended by a piece of amaranth silk. The wax represented the portrait of Henry VIII., with a device or inscription. He held the seal in his hand, looked at it, and turned it over two or three times.
“This is indeed the royal seal,” said he. “I have been familiar with it for a long time; and now the king has not hesitated to attach it to my name. Well, God’s will be done!” And he laid the seal and the roll of paper on the table.
“You see it,” said the clerk, observing from the corner of his eye that he had replaced the paper. “Oh! I am perfectly at home with everything since I came here. It was I who registered Empson and Dudley, the ministers of Henry VII., and the Duke of Buckingham. A famous trial that! High treason also—decapitated at Tower
Hill. A noble lord, moreover; he—listen, I am going to tell you; for it is all written here.” And he began to turn the leaves of the book. “Here, the 17th of May, 1521, page 86.” And placing the end of his finger on the page indicated, he looked at Sir Thomas complacently, as if to say: “Admire my accuracy, now, and my presence of mind.”
On hearing this Margaret arose involuntarily to her feet. “Silence, miserable wretch!” she cried. “What is it to us that you have kept an account of all the assassinations which have been committed in this place? No! no! my father shall not stay here; he shall not stay here. He is innocent—yes, innocent; it would be impossible for him to be guilty!”
The clerk inspected her closely, as if to determine who she could be. “That is the custom; they always say that, damsel. As for me, however, it concerns me not. They are tried up above; but I—I write here; that is all. Why do they allow themselves to be taken? People ought not to be called wretches so readily,” he added, fixing his eyes upon her. “I am honest, you see, and the worthy father of a family, you understand. I have two children, and I support them by the fruit of my labor.”
“Margaret,” said Sir Thomas, “my dearest daughter, you must not remain here!”
“You believe—you think so! Well, perhaps not; and yet I implore you! Undoubtedly I am only a woman; I can do nothing at all; I am only Margaret!”
And a gleam shot from her eyes.
Sir Thomas regarded her, overwhelmed with anguish and despair. He took her by the arm and led her far away from the clerk, toward the
large and only window, looking out on the gloomy and narrow back yard. “Come,” he said, “let me see you display more courage; do not add to the anguish that already fills my soul! Margaret, look up to heaven.” And he raised his right hand toward the firmament, of which they could see but the smallest space. “Have these men, my daughter, the power to deprive us of our abode up there? Whatever afflictions may befall us here on earth, one day we shall be reunited there in eternity. Then, Margaret, we shall have no more chains, no more prisons, no more separations. Why, then, should you grieve, since you are immortal? What signify the years that roll by and are cast behind us, more than a cloud of dust by which we are for a moment enveloped? If my life was to be extinguished, if you were to cease to exist, then, yes, my despair would be unlimited; but we live, and we shall live for ever! We shall meet again, whatever may be the fate that attends me, whatever may be the road I am forced to follow. Death—ah! well, what is death? A change of life. Listen to me, Margaret: the present is nothing; the future is everything! Yes, I prefer the gloom of the prison to the brilliancy of the throne; all the miseries of this place to the delights of the universe, if they must be purchased at the cost of my soul’s salvation. Cease, then, to weep for me. If I am imprisoned here, it is only what He who called me out of nothing has permitted; and were I at liberty to leave, I would not do so unless it were his will. Know, then, my daughter, that I am calm and perfectly resigned to be here, since God so wills it. Return home now; see that nothing goes wrong there. I appoint you in my place,
without, at the same time, elevating you above your mother; and rest assured that your father will endure everything with joy and submission, not because of the justice of men, but because of that of God!”
Margaret listened to her father without replying. She knew well that she would not be permitted to remain in the prison, and yet she so much wished it.
“No,” she exclaimed at last, “I do not wish to be thus resigned! It is very easy for you to talk, it is nothing for me to listen; but as for me, I am on the verge of life. Without you, for me life has no longer the least attraction! Let them take mine when they take yours! It is the same thing; they owe it to the king. He so thirsts for blood that it will not do to rob him of one drop. Have you not betrayed him? Well! I am a traitor also; let him avenge himself, then; let him take his revenge; let him pick my bones, since he tears my heart. I am you; let him devour me also. Write my name on your register,” she continued, suddenly turning toward the clerk, as if convinced that the reasons she had given could not be answered. “Come, friend, good-fortune to you—two prisoners instead of one! Come, write; you write so well! Margaret More, aged eighteen years, guilty of high treason!”
The clerk made no reply.
“Is there anything lacking?” said Margaret.
“But, damsel,” he replied, placing his pen behind his ear with an air of indecision, “I cannot do that; you have not been accused. If you are an accomplice and have some revelations to make, you must so declare before the court.”
“You are right; yes, I am an
accomplice!” she cried. “Therefore come; let nothing stop you.”
“My beloved child,” said Sir Thomas painfully, “you would have me, then, condemn myself by acknowledging you as an accomplice in a crime which I have not committed?”
“O my father!” cried the young girl, “tell me, have you, then, some hope? No! no! you are deceiving me. You see it! You have heard it! They would have come this night to tear you from our arms, from your desolated home! No; all is over, and I too wish to die!”
As she said these words, Cromwell, who had rapidly and noiselessly ascended the stairs, pushed open the door and entered. He came to see if More had arrived. He saluted him without the least embarrassment, and remarked the tears that wet the beautiful face of Margaret. She immediately wiped them away, and looked at him scornfully.
“You come to see if the time has arrived!” she said; “if my father has fallen into your hands. Yes, here he is; look at him closely, and dare to accuse him!”
“Damsel,” replied Cromwell, bowing awkwardly, “ladies should not meddle with justice, whose sword falls before them.”
As he said this, Kingston, the lieutenant of the Tower, entered, followed by an escort of armed guards.
The sound of their footsteps, the clanking of their arms, astonished Margaret. Her bosom heaved. She felt that there was no longer any resistance to be offered; she understood that it was this power which threatened to crush and destroy all she loved—she, poor young girl, facing these armed men, covered
with iron, clashing with steel; these living machines, who understood neither eloquence, reason, truth, sex, age, nor beauty. She regarded them with a look of silent despair.
She saw Kingston advance toward her father, and say he arrested him in the name of the king; and then take his hand to express the regret with which he executed this act of obedience to the king. “The coward!” she thought; “he sacrifices his friend.”
She saw her father approach her, to clasp her in his arms, to bid her adieu, to tell her to return home, to watch over her sisters, to respect her mother, take care of Henry Pattison, for his sake. She heard all this; she was almost unconscious, for she saw and heard, and yet remained transfixed and motionless. Then he left her. Kingston conducted him, the guards surrounded him, he passed through the door leading into the interior of the Tower; it closed, and Margaret was alone.
She stood thus for a long time, as if paralyzed by what had just passed before her. She put her hand upon her forehead; it was burning, and she could recall nothing more. By degrees animation returned, and she felt she was cold. She looked around her; she saw the clerk still seated at his desk, writing. Absolute silence reigned; those great walls were gloomy, deaf, and mute. Then she arose. She saw the day was declining; she thought she would try to go. Roper was waiting, and perhaps uneasy. She cast a lingering look at the door she had seen close upon her father; she set these places in her memory, saying: “I will return.” She then went out, and slowly descended to the bank of the river, where she found Roper, who had charge of
the boat, and who was astonished at her long absence.
“Well, Margaret, and your father?” he said, seeing her alone. She drooped her head. “Will he not return?”
“No,” she replied, and entered the boat; then she suddenly seized the hands of Roper. “He is there—do you see?—within those black walls, in that gloomy prison. The guards have taken him; they seized and surrounded him; he disappeared, and I am left—left alone! He has sent me away; he told me to go. Kingston! Cromwell! O Roper! I can stand no more; let us go.” And Margaret sank, panting and exhausted, upon the forepart of the boat. Roper listened and looked at her.
“What! he will not return?” he repeated; and his eyes questioned Margaret.
But the noble and beautiful young girl heard him not; with her eyes fixed on the walls of the Tower, she seemed absorbed in one thought alone.
“Farewell, farewell, my father!” she said. “Your ears no more hear me, but your heart responds to my own. Farewell, farewell!” And she made a sign with her hand, as though she had him before her eyes.
“Is it true, Margaret, that he will not return?”
“No! I tell you he will not. We are now all alone in the world. You may go. You may go quickly now, if you wish.”
“Well,” said Roper, “he will be detained to stand his trial; that will end, perhaps, better than you think.” And he seated himself quietly at the oars; because Roper, always disposed to hope for the best in the future, concluded that Margaret, doubtless frightened at the imposing appearance of justice, believed
Sir Thomas to be in far greater danger than he really was; and, following the thread of his own thoughts, he added aloud: “Men are men, and Margaret is a woman.”
“What would you say by that?” she asked with energy. “Do you mean to say that I am your inferior, and that my nature is lower than your own? What do you mean by saying ‘a woman’? Yes, I am inferior, but only in the animal strength which enables you to row at this moment and make me mount the wave that carries me. I am your inferior in cruelty, indifference, and selfishness. Ah! if I were a man like you, and could only retain under your form all the vigor of my soul and the fearlessness with which I feel myself transported, you would see if my father remained alone, abandoned without resistance in the depths of the prison where I saw him led; and if the oppressor should not, in his turn, fear the voice of the oppressed; and if this nation, which you call a nation of men, should be allowed to slaughter its own children!”
“Margaret,” said Roper, alarmed, “calm yourself.”
“I must sleep, I suppose, in order to please you, when I see my father delivered into the hands of his enemies! He is lost, I tell you, and you will not believe it, and I can do nothing for him. Of what good is courage to one who cannot use it? Of what use is strength, if one can only wish for it? To fret one’s self in the night of impossibility; to see, to hear, and have power to do nothing. This is the punishment I must endure for ever! Nothing to lean upon! Everything will fall around me. He is condemned, they will say; there will be only one human creature less! That will be my father!”
And Margaret, standing up in the middle of the boat, her hair dishevelled, her eyes fixed, seemed to see the wretchedness she was describing. The wind blew violently, and scattered the curls of her dark hair around her burning face.
“Margaret,” cried Roper, running to her and taking her in his arms—“Margaret, are you dreaming? What would your father say if he knew you had thus abandoned yourself to despair?”
“He would say,” replied Margaret, “that we must despise the world and place our trust in Heaven; he would recall resignation into my exasperated soul. But shall I see him henceforth? Who will aid me in supporting the burdens of this life, against which, in my misery, I revolt every instant? Oh! if I could only share his chains. Then, near him, I would brave tyrants, tortures, hell, and the devils combined! The strength of my will would shake the earth, when I cannot turn over a single stone!”
At this moment the boat, which Roper, in his trouble, had ceased to guide, struck violently against some piers the fishermen had sunk along the river. It was almost capsized, and the water rushed in through a hole made by the stakes.
“We are going to sink,” cried Roper, leaving Margaret and rushing toward the oar he had abandoned.
“Well! do what you can to prevent it,” replied the young girl coldly, as she seated herself in her former position in the stern of the boat.
But the water continued to rush in, and was already as high as their feet. Roper seized his cloak, and made it serve, though not without considerable difficulty, to close the
vent through which the water entered. A plank which he found in the bottom of the boat was used to finish his work, and they were able to resume their course; the boat, however, made but slow way, and it was constantly necessary to bail out the water that leaked through the badly-repaired opening. Night came on, and it was already quite late when they succeeded in reaching the Chelsea terrace, at the foot of which they landed.
Roper, having attached the boat to the chain used for that purpose, opened the gate, and they entered together. Margaret’s heart throbbed violently; this lonely house, deprived of him who had made the happiness of her life; the gate which they had closed without his having entered it—everything, even to the sound of her own footsteps, pierced her soul with anguish. She passed rapidly through the garden and entered the house, where she found the rest of the family assembled as usual. All appeared sad, Lady More alone excepted; this woman, vulgar and coarse, was not in a condition to comprehend the position in which she found herself; the baseness of her sentiments, the littleness of her soul, rendered her a burden as annoying as she was painful to support. Margaret, in particular, could feel no affection for her. Frank and sincere herself, she abhorred the cunning and artifice her stepmother believed herself bound to employ to make up for her deficiency of intellect; and when, in the midst of a most interesting and elevated conversation, the reasoning of which Margaret caught with so much avidity, she heard her loudly decide a question and pronounce a judgment in the vulgar phrases used among the most
obscure class of people, she was not always able to conceal her impatience. Her father, more cheerful, more master of himself, recalled by a glance or a smile his dear Margaret to a degree of patience and respect he was always ready to observe.
On entering, therefore, Margaret’s indignation was excited by hearing her stepmother abusing unmercifully poor Henry Pattison, who had wept incessantly ever since the departure of his master.
“Till-Wall! Till-Wall!” she cried. “This fool here will never let us have any more peace! Sir Thomas had better have taken him with him; they could have acted the fool together!”
Margaret listened at first to her stepmother, but she could not permit her to continue. “Weep!” she cried—“yes, weep, poor Pattison! for your master is now imprisoned in the Tower, and God knows whether you will ever see him again. Weep, all of you,” she continued, turning to her sisters, “because you do not see your father in the midst of us. Believe in my presentiments; they have never deceived me. Those souls, coarse and devoid of sensibility, over whom life passes and dries like rain upon a rock, will always reject such beliefs; but if, when one is united by affection to a cherished being, the slightest movement of his eyes enables you to read his soul, and you discover the most secret emotion of his heart, we must believe also that nature, on the approach of misfortunes which are to befall us, reveals to us the secrets of the future. That is why I say to you, Weep, all of you; for you will never see him again. I—no, I will not weep, because to me this means death! I shall die!”
And crossing the room, she went and threw herself on her knees before the arm-chair usually occupied by her father. “Yesterday at this hour he was here; I have seen him here; I have heard him speak to me!” she cried, and it seemed to her she still heard him; but in place of that cherished voice which sounded always near her that of Lady More alone fell on her ear.
“Cecilia,” she said, “go and see if supper is ready; it should have been served an hour ago. I have waited for you,” she added, looking at Margaret, “although you may not have expected it, judging from the time you were absent.”
“I thank you,” replied Margaret. “It was not necessary; I could not eat.”
“That is something one could not guess,” angrily replied Lady More, rising from her arm-chair and proceeding to the dining-room.
They all followed her; but, on seeing her stepmother take Sir Thomas’ place, and begin in a loud voice to say grace (as was customary in those days, when heads of families did not blush to acknowledge themselves Christians), Margaret was unable to restrain her tears, and immediately left the dining-room. Roper cast an anxious look after her, but on account of her stepmother he said nothing.
“It appears,” said Lady More, whilst helping the dish which was placed before her, “that we are at the end of our trouble. All my life I’ve been watching Sir Thomas throwing himself into difficulties and dangers: at one time he would sustain a poor little country squire against some powerful family; at another he was taking part against the government; and now, I fear, this last affair will be the worst of all. But what have you heard,
Roper? Why has Sir Thomas not returned?”
Roper then related to her how he had waited in the boat; how he had seen the new queen pass, followed by the most brilliant assembly; and, finally, what Margaret had told him concerning her father.
“You see!” she exclaimed at every pause he made in his narration. “I was right! Say if I was not right?”
Meanwhile, her appetite remained, undisturbed; she continued to eat very leisurely while questioning Roper.
He was anxious to finish satisfying the curiosity of his stepmother, who detained him for a long time, giving the details of Lady Boleyn’s dress, although, in spite of his complacent good-will, Roper was unable to describe but imperfectly the inventions, the materials, jewelry, and embroideries which composed her attire.
“How stupid and senseless these scruples of Sir Thomas are!” she cried on hearing these beautiful things described. “I ask you now if it is not natural for me to wish to be among those elegant ladies, and to be adorned like them? But no; he has done everything to deprive himself of the king’s favor, who has yielded to him to the utmost degree. But I will go and find him; I will speak to him, and demonstrate to him that his first duty is to take care of his family, and not drag us all down with him.” As she said this, she shook her gray head, and assumed a menacing air as she turned towards Roper. But he was gone. He was afraid she would make him recommence his narrative; and, contrary to his usual custom, he was greatly troubled at the condition in which he saw Margaret.
He softly ascended to the chamber
of the young girl, and paused to listen a moment at the door. The light shone through the windows, and yet he heard not the slightest sound. He then entered, and found Margaret asleep, kneeling on the floor like a person at prayer. She was motionless, but her sleep seemed troubled by painful dreams; and her eyebrows and all the features of her beautiful face were successively contracted. Her head rested on her shoulder, and she appeared to be still gazing at a little portrait of her father, which she had worn from her childhood, and which she had placed on the chair before her.
Roper regarded her a moment with a feeling of intense sorrow. He then knelt by her side and took her hand.
The movement aroused Margaret. “Where are we now, Roper?” she said, opening her eyes. “Have you finished mending the boat?”
But scarcely had she pronounced the words when, looking around her, she perceived her error. “Ah!” she continued, “I had forgotten we had reached home.”
“My dear Margaret,” said Roper, “I have felt the most dreadful anxiety since you left your stepmother.”
“Oh! my stepmother,” cried Margaret. “How happy she is! How I envy her the selfishness which makes us feel that in possessing ourselves all our wishes are accomplished! She is, at least, always sure of following and carrying herself in every place; they cannot separate her from the sole object of her love, and nothing can tear her from it.”
“Is it, then, a happiness to love only one’s self? And can you, dear Margaret, desire any such fate?”
“Yes!” replied Margaret. “The stupid creature by whom the future is disregarded, the past forgotten, the present ignored, makes me envious!
Why exhaust ourselves in useless efforts? And why does not man, like the chrysalis which sleeps forty days, not await more patiently the moment when he shall be born in eternity—the moment that will open to him the sources of a new existence, where he shall love without fearing to lose the object of his devotion; where, happy in the happiness of the Creator himself, he will praise and bless him every moment with new transports of joy? William, do you know what that power is which transforms our entire being into the one whom we love, in order to make us endure his sufferings a thousand times over? Do you understand well that love which has neither flesh nor bone; which loves only the heart and mind; which mounts without fear into the presence of God himself; which draws from him, from his grandeur, his perfections, from his infinite majesty, all its strength and all its endurance; which, fearing not death, extends beyond the grave, and lives and increases through all eternity? That celestial love—have you ever felt it? that soul within a soul, which considers virtue alone, lives only for her, and which is every moment exalted by its sacrifices and its devotion? that life within another life, which feels that nothing can extinguish it, and considers the world and creatures as nothing? Speak, Roper, do you entirely comprehend it? O my friend! listen attentively to me; when the fruit of experience shall have ripened for you, when your fellow-creatures shall no more speak of you but as ‘the old man,’ when you shall have long looked upon your children’s children, then you will assemble them round you, and tell them that in other times a tyrant named
Henry VIII. devastated their country, and immolated, in his bloody rage, the father of Margaret; you will tell them that you loved Margaret, and that she perished in the flower of her youth; and you will teach them to execrate the memory of that cruel king, to weep over the oppressed, and to defend them.”
“Margaret!” cried Roper, “whither have your excited feelings carried you? Who will be able to take you from me? And the children of whom you speak—will they not also be yours?”
“No, they will not be mine! Upon the earth there remains for me neither father nor husband, now that all are reduced to slaves. And learn this, if you do not already know it: Slaves should have no hearts! But I—I have one,” she cried, “and I well understand how to keep it out of their hands!”
“Margaret,” replied Roper, “you are greatly to blame for expressing yourself in this manner. What! because the king sends for your father to come and take an oath which he believes he has a right to exact, you already accuse him of wishing to encompass his death? Your father is lost, you say. Have you forgotten, then, the numberless assurances of protection and particular regard which the king has not ceased to bestow on him in the most conspicuous manner? Has he not raised him to the highest position in his kingdom? And if your father had not voluntarily renounced it, the office would have been still in his possession.”
“Without doubt,” replied Margaret, “if my father had been willing to barter his conscience, they would have bought it. To-day they will weigh it in the balance against his life. He is already doomed.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
SANCTA SOPHIA.[14]
The new and improved edition of Father Cressy’s compendium of the principal treatises of the English Benedictine, Father Baker, entitled Sancta Sophia, or Holy Wisdom, which has now appeared, has been long looked for, and we give it a cordial welcome. In compliance with an earnest request of the very reverend and learned prelate under whose careful supervision this new edition has been prepared, we very gladly make use of the opportunity which is thus presented of calling attention to this admirable work, and to some topics of the greatest interest and importance which are intimately connected with its peculiar nature and scope as a book of spiritual instruction. It belongs to a special class of books treating of the higher grades of the spiritual life, and of the more perfect way in which the soul that has passed through the inferior exercises of active meditation is led upward toward the tranquil region of contemplation. It is a remarkable fact, and an indication of the increasing number of those who feel the aspiration after this higher life, that such a demand has made itself felt, within a comparatively recent period, for spiritual treatises of this sort. The most voluminous and
popular modern writer who has ministered to this appetite of souls thirsting for the fountains of pure spiritual doctrine, is the late holy Oratorian, Father Faber. The unparalleled circulation of his works is a matter of common notoriety. The lives of saints and of holy persons who have been led in the highways of mystic illumination and union with God, which have poured forth in such copious abundance from the Catholic press, and have been so eagerly read, are another symptom as well as a cause of this increasing taste for the science and wisdom of the saints. The most choice and elevated spiritual works which have appeared are, however, with few exceptions, republications of books of an older and bygone time. Among these we may mention that quaint treatise so often referred to by Father Baker, called The Cloud of the Unknowing, Walter Hilton’s Scala Perfectionis, the Spiritual Dialogues of St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Teresa’s writings, Dom Castaniza’s Spiritual Conflict and Conquest, and above all others that truly magnificent edition in an English version of the Works of St. John of the Cross, for which we are indebted to Mr. Lewis and his Eminence the Cardinal of Westminster. As a manual for common and general use, the Sancta Sophia of Father Baker has an excellence and value peculiarly its own. Canon Dalton, a good authority on subjects of this kind, says that “it is certainly the best book we have in English on prayer.” Bishop Ullathorne
says of it: “Nothing is more clear, simple, solid, and profound.” Similar testimonies might be multiplied; and if the suffrages of the thousands of unknown but devout persons in religious communities and in the secular state, who have made use of this book, could be collected, the result would prove that the high esteem in which it has ever been held by the English Benedictines is perfectly well deserved, according to the sense of the most pious among the faithful.
The first modern edition of Sancta Sophia was published in New York in 1857. Before this time it was wholly unknown in this country, so far as we are informed, excepting in the convent of Carmelite Nuns at Baltimore. At the ancient convent on Aisquith Street, where a small community of the daughters of St. Teresa had long been strictly practising the rule of their holy mother, an old copy of the first edition of Sancta Sophia was preserved as their greatest treasure. It was there that Father Walworth became acquainted with the book, and, charmed with its quaint style and rare, old-fashioned excellence, resolved to have a new edition of it published for the benefit of the Catholics of the United States. By permission of the Very Rev. Father Bernard, of holy memory, who was then provincial of the Redemptorists, it was published, under Father Hecker’s supervision, by James B. Kirker (Dunigan & Bro.) of New York. It was reprinted correctly, though in a plain and unattractive form, without any change excepting in the spelling of words and the omission of certain forms of short prayers and aspirations which were added to the treatises in the original. There is no substantial difference, as to the text of the work itself, between this
edition and the new one edited by Dr. Sweeney. He has, however, had it published in a much better and more attractive form, has restored all the parts omitted, and, besides carefully revising the text, has added prefatory matter, notes, and appendices, which make his edition more complete. A portrait of the venerable Father Baker is prefixed. If an index of the contents of the chapters had been added, it would have made the edition as perfect as we could desire. That it will now become once more widely known and appreciated in England we cannot doubt, and we trust that it will also obtain a much wider circulation in this country than it has hitherto enjoyed. There is but one serious obstacle in the way of its becoming a universal favorite with those who have a taste for solid spiritual food. It is food of the most simple, dry, and hard quality, served without sauce or condiments of any kind—pure nutriment, like brown bread, wheaten, grits, farina, or Scotch porridge. It is most wholesome and conducive to spiritual growth, but altogether destitute of the eloquence which we find in Tauler, the deep philosophy and sublime poetry of St. John of the Cross, the ecstatic rapture of St. Teresa. Whoever studies it will have no stimulus but a pure and simple desire for instruction, improvement, and edification. The keynote to the entire mode and measure of the book is given in the chapter, borrowed from Father Walter Hilton, on the spiritual pilgrimage: “One way he knew, which, if he would diligently pursue according to the directions and marks that he would give him—though, said he, I cannot promise thee a security from many frights, beatings, and other ill-usage and
temptations of all kinds; but if thou canst have courage and patience enough to suffer them without quarrelling or resisting, or troubling thyself, and so pass on, having this only in thy mind, and sometimes on thy tongue, I have naught, I am naught, I desire naught but to be at Jerusalem, my life for thine, thou wilt escape safe with thy life, and in a competent time arrive thither.” Father Baker attempts nothing but to furnish a plain guide-book over this route. For descriptions of the scenery, photographic views of mountains, valleys, lakes, and prospects, one must go elsewhere. A clear, methodical, safe guide-book over the route he will find in Sancta Sophia. This is not to say that one should confine himself exclusively to its perusal, or deny himself the pleasure of reading other books in which there is more that pleases the imagination and awakens the affections, or that satisfies the demands of the intellect seeking for the deepest causes of things and the exposition of sublime truths. The most important and practical matter, however, is to find and keep the right road. And certainly many, if not all, of those who are seeking the straightest and safest way to perfection and everlasting beatitude, will value the Sancta Sophia all the more for its very plainness, and the absence of everything except that simple and solid doctrine which they desire and feel the need of amid the trials and perplexities of the journey of life.
The doctrine of Father Baker has not, however, lacked opponents from his own day to the present. Since the publication of Sancta Sophia in this country we have repeatedly heard of its use being discountenanced in religious
communities and in the case of devout persons in the world. Dr. Sweeney calls attention directly to this fact of opposition to Father Baker’s doctrine, and devotes a considerable part of his own annotations to a refutation of the objections alleged against it. He has pointed out one seemingly plausible ground of these censures which we were not before aware of, and which was unknown to the American editors of Sancta Sophia when they republished it in this country. We cannot pass this matter by without some examination; for although on such subjects controversy is disagreeable, and to the unlearned and simple-minded may be vexatious and perplexing, it cannot be avoided where a question of orthodox soundness in doctrine is concerned. The gist of the whole matter is found in chapter the seventh, “On the Prayer of Interior Silence,” to which Dr. Sweeney has appended a long note of explanation. The matter of this chapter is professedly derived from an old Spanish work by Antonio de Rojas, entitled The Life of the Spirit Approved, which was placed on the Index about fifty years after the death of Father Baker, and two years after the condemnation of Quietism. We have never seen this book, but we are informed by Dr. Sweeney that its language, taken in the most natural and obvious sense, leads to the conclusion that the state of charity which is requisite to perfection excludes all private interest, not only all fear of punishment, but all hope of reward—that is, all desire or consideration of the beatitude of heaven. In order to attain this state of indifference and annihilation of self-love, all express acts are discountenanced, and that kind of silence and passivity in
prayer recommended which suppresses the active movements of the soul toward God, such as hope, love toward God as the chief good, petition and supplication, thanksgiving, etc. Now, such a doctrine as this is manifestly tinged with some of the errors of Quietism, and seems to be precisely similar to the semi-Quietism of Madame Guyon and Fénelon which was condemned by Innocent XII. in 1699. The second of the propositions from Fénelon’s Maxims of the Saints condemned by this pope is as follows: “In the state of contemplative or unitive life every interested motive of fear and hope is lost.” The doctrinal error here is the notion that the soul’s love of itself, desire and hope for its own beatification in God, and love to God as its own sovereign good, is incompatible with a pure, disinterested, perfect love of God, as the sovereign good in himself. The practical error is the inculcation of direct efforts to suppress every movement of interested love to God in prayer, in order to make way for passive, disinterested love. Father Baker lived so long before the errors of false mysticism had been thoroughly investigated, refuted, and condemned that it was very easy for him to fail of detecting what was unguarded, inaccurately expressed, exaggerated, or of erroneous tendency in a book which was approved by a number of prelates and theologians. He has certainly not borrowed or adopted what was erroneous in the book, but that portion of its teaching which was sound and safe, upon which the error was a mere excrescence. The mere fact of citing a book which has been placed on the Index is a matter of small and only incidental moment. Dr. Sweeney seems to us to have
followed too timorous a conscience in his way of treating the chapter of Sancta Sophia in which the work of De Rojas is quoted. We cannot agree with him that Father Baker would have suppressed that chapter if the book had been censured during his lifetime. He would have suppressed his commendation of the book, and looked carefully to see what the error was on account of which it had been condemned, as any good Catholic is bound to do in such a case. But we feel confident that he would not have felt himself obliged to make any essential alteration in what he had written on the prayer of silence, though he would probably have explicitly guarded it against any possible misapprehension or perversion. Any one who reads the Sancta Sophia, especially with Dr. Sweeney’s annotations, will see at once how absurd is the charge of a tincture of semi-Quietism against so sober and practical a writer as Father Baker, and how remote from anything favoring the illusions of false spirituality are his instructions on prayer. It would be almost as absurd to impute Quietism to Father Baker as rigorism to St. Alphonsus. We are afraid that Dr. Sweeney’s signal-board of “caution” will scare away simple-minded and devout readers from one of the most useful chapters of Sancta Sophia, one which is really the pivot of the whole book. Father Baker’s special scope and object was not to give instruction in meditation and active exercises, but to lead the soul through and beyond these to contemplation. The instructions on the prayer of interior silence are precisely those which are fitted to enlighten and direct a person in the transition state from the spiritual exercises of discursive meditation
to that state of ordinary and acquired contemplation which Scaramelli and all standard writers recognize as both desirable and attainable for those who have devoted a considerable time to the practice of mental prayer. Father Baker’s directions on this head should be judged by what they are intrinsically in themselves, without any regard to anything else. Are they singular, imprudent, or in any respect contrary to the doctrine of the saints and other authors of recognized soundness in doctrine? We cannot see that they are. Whatever perversion of the method of prayer in question may have been contained in the book of De Rojas, sprang from his erroneous doctrine that explicit acts of the understanding and will in prayer should be suppressed in order to eradicate the implicit acts, the habits, and tendencies of the soul, by which its intention and desire are directed toward its own supreme good and felicity in God. But this is no reason against the method itself, apart from a perversion no trace of which is to be found in Father Baker’s own language. The well-known and justly-revered Father Ramière, S.J., in his introduction to a little work by another Jesuit, Father De Caussade, entitled L’Abandon à la Providence Divine, remarks in reference to the doctrine of that book, which is quite similar in its spirit to the Sancta Sophia, as follows: “There is no truth so luminous that it does not change into error from the moment when it suffers diminution or exaggeration; and there is no nourishment, however salutary to the soul, which, if imprudently used, may not produce in it the effect of a noxious poison.” It would seem that some are so afraid of the perversion of the luminous truths of
mystical theology, and of the abuse of the salutary nourishment it affords to the soul, that they would desire to avoid the danger by shutting out the light and locking up the food in a closet. They would restrict all persons whatever, in every stage and condition of the spiritual life, to certain methods of prayer and the use of certain books, excellent for the majority of persons while they are beginners or proficients, but unsuitable, or even injurious, to some who are of a peculiar disposition, or who have advanced so far that they need something of a different order. It is a great mistake to suppose that such a course is safe or prudent. There are some who cannot, even in the beginning, make use of discursive meditation. It is a generally-recognized rule that those who can, and actually do, practise this kind of mental prayer, ought, as soon as it ceases to be pleasant and profitable to them, to change it for a simpler method. Even those set methods which are not discursive, if they consist in oft-repeated acts of the understanding, the affections, and the will, become frequently, after the lapse of time, too laborious, wearisome, and insipid to be continued with any fervor. The soul needs and instinctively longs for the cessation of this perpetual activity in a holy repose, in tranquil contemplation, in rest upon the bosom of God. It is for such souls that the chapter on the prayer of interior silence was written.
We may now examine a little more closely the passages which Dr. Sweeney seems to have had in view, as requiring to be read with caution because similar to statements made by De Rojas and other writers whose doctrine is tinctured with
Quietism. Dr. Sweeney remarks: “When afterwards (in the book of De Rojas) express acts toward God are discountenanced, and it is declared that an advantage of this kind of prayer is self-annihilation, and that resignation then becomes so pure that all private interest is forgotten and ignored, we see the prudence and watchfulness of the Holy See in cautioning her children against a book which, if it does not expressly, distinctly, and advisedly teach it, yet conveys the impression that a state of charity excludes all private interest, such as fear of punishment and hope of reward, and that perfection implies such a state.”[15]
Father Baker says that in the prayer of silence, “with the will she [the soul] frames no particular request nor any express acts toward God”; that “by this exercise we come to the most perfect operation of self-annihilation,” and practise in the most sublime manner “resignation, since the soul forgets all private interests”; and more to the same effect. Nevertheless, the dangerous and erroneous sense which this language might convey, if intended or interpreted to mean that the soul must suppress all hope or desire for its own private good as incompatible with the perfect love of God, is plainly excluded by the immediate context in which it occurs. The soul, says Father Baker, should “continue in his presence in the quality of a petitioner, but such an one as makes no special, direct requests, but contents herself to appear before him with all her wants and necessities, best, and indeed only, known to him, who therefore needs not her information.” Again, he compares the soul to the
subject of a sovereign who abstains from asking any particular favors from his prince, because he knows that “he is both most wise to judge what favors may become the one to give and the other to receive, and in that that he has a love and magnificence to advance him beyond his deserts.”
Once more he says that in this prayer the soul exercises in a sublime manner “hope, because the soul, placing herself before God in the posture of a beggar, confidently expects that he will impart to her both the knowledge of his will and ability to fulfil it.”
It is equally plain that Father Baker’s method of the prayer of interior silence is not liable to the censure which Dr. Sweeney attaches to the one of De Rojas when he remarks that “we can at once see what danger accompanies such an exercise, if that can be called an exercise where all activity ceases and prayer is really excluded.” “Since an intellectual soul is all activity,” says Father Baker, “so that it cannot continue a moment without some desires, the soul then rejecting all desires toward created objects, she cannot choose but tend inwardly in her affections to God, for which end only she put herself in such a posture of prayer; her tendence then being much like that of the mounting of an eagle after a precedent vigorous springing motion and extension of her wings, which ceasing, in virtue thereof the flight is continued for a good space with a great swiftness, but withal with great stillness, quietness, and ease, without any waving of the wings at all or the least force used in any member, being in as much ease and stillness as if she were reposing on her nest.” For the further defence of Father Baker’s doctrine from the
other parts of Sancta Sophia, and in general from his known method of personal conduct and his direction of others, what his learned Benedictine editor has furnished amply suffices.
We are not content, however, with simply showing that Father Baker’s method of conducting souls to perfection by means of contemplative prayer is free from the errors of Quietism and the illusions of false mysticism. The Sancta Sophia is not merely a good book, one among the many English books of devotion and spiritual reading which can be safely and profitably read. We think Canon Dalton’s opinion that it is the best book on prayer we have in the English language is correct. It is a guide for those who will scarcely find another book to fill its place; and we venture to affirm that the very part of it which we have been specially criticising is not only defensible, but positively in accordance, even to its phraseology, with the doctrine of the most approved authors, and of special, practical value and importance.
In an appendix which Father Ramière has added to the little book by Father Caussade already once cited in this article, there is a chapter taken from Bossuet, entitled “A Short and Easy Method of making the Prayer of Faith and of the simple presence of God,” from which we quote the following passages: “Meditation is very good in its own time, and very useful at the beginning of the spiritual life; but it is not proper to make it a final stopping-place, for the soul which is faithful in mortification and recollection ordinarily receives a gift of prayer which is purer and more simple, and may be called the prayer of simplicity, consisting in a
simple view, or fixed, attentive, and loving look directed toward some divine object, whether it be God in himself, or some one of his perfections, or Jesus Christ, or one of the mysteries relating to him, or some other Christian truths. In this attitude the soul leaves off reasoning, and makes use of a quiet contemplation, which keeps it peaceful, attentive, and susceptible to the divine operations and impressions which the Holy Spirit imparts to it; it does little and receives a great deal; its labor is easy, and nevertheless more fruitful than it would otherwise be; and as it approaches very near to the source of all light—grace and virtue—it receives on that account the more of all these. The practice of this prayer ought to begin on first awaking, by an act of faith in the presence of God, who is everywhere, and in Jesus Christ, whose eyes are always upon us, if we were even buried in the centre of the earth. This act is elicited either in the ordinary and sensible manner, as by saying inwardly, ‘I believe that my God is present’; or it is a simple calling to memory of the faith of God’s presence in a more purely spiritual manner. After this, one ought not to produce multifarious and diverse acts and dispositions, but to remain simply attentive to this presence of God, and as it were exposed to view before him, continuing this devout attention and attitude as long as the Lord grants us the grace for doing so, without striving to make other acts than those to which we are inspired, since this kind of prayer is one in which we converse with God alone, and is a union which contains in an eminent mode all other particular dispositions, and disposes the soul to passivity; by which is meant, that God becomes sole master of
its interior, and operates in it in a special manner. The less working done by the creature in this state, the more powerful is the operation of God in it; and since God’s action is at the same time a repose, the soul becomes in a certain way like to him in this kind of prayer, receiving in it wonderful effects; so that as the rays of the sun cause the growth, blossoming, and fruit-bearing of plants, the soul, in like manner, which is attentive and tranquilly basking under the rays of the divine Sun of righteousness, is in the best condition for receiving divine influences which enrich it with all sorts of virtues.”[16]
St. John of the Cross declares that “the soul having attained to the interior union of love, the spiritual faculties of it are no longer active, and still less those of the body; for now that the union of love is actually brought about, the faculties of the soul cease from their exertions, because, now that the goal is reached, all employment of means is at an end.”[17]
Again: “He who truly loves makes shipwreck of himself in all else, that he may gain the more in the object of his love. Thus the soul says that it has lost itself—that is, deliberately, of set purpose. This loss occurs in two ways. The soul loses itself, making no account whatever of itself, but referring all to the Beloved, resigning itself freely into his hands without any selfish views, losing itself deliberately, and seeking nothing for itself. Secondly, it loses itself in all things, making no account of anything save that which concerns the Beloved. This is to lose one’s self—that is, to be willing that others
should have all things. Such is he that loves God; he seeks neither gain nor reward, but only to lose all, even himself according to God’s will. This is what such an one counts gain.… When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with him by faith and love, then it may be said to have gained God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self.”[18]
In another place the saint explains quite at length the necessity of passing from meditation to contemplation, the reasons for doing so, and the signs which denote that the time for this change has arrived. The state of beginners, he says, is “one of meditation and of acts of reflection.” After a certain stage of progress has been reached, “God begins at once to introduce the soul into the state of contemplation, and that very quickly, especially in the case of religious, because these, having renounced the world, quickly fashion their senses and desires according to God; they have, therefore, to pass at once from meditation to contemplation. This passage, then, takes place when the discursive acts and meditation fail, when sensible sweetness and the first fervors cease, when the soul cannot make reflections as before, nor find any sensible comfort, but is fallen into aridity, because the spiritual life is changed.… It is evident, therefore, that if the soul does not now abandon its previous ways
of meditation, it will receive this gift of God in a scanty and imperfect manner.… If the soul will at this time make efforts of its own, and encourage another disposition than that of passive, loving attention, most submissive and calm, and if it does not abstain from its previous discursive acts, it will place a complete barrier against those graces which God is about to communicate to it in this loving knowledge.… The soul must be attached to nothing, not even to the subject of its meditation, not to sensible or spiritual sweetness, because God requires a spirit so free, so annihilated, that every act of the soul, even of thought, of liking or disliking, will impede and disturb it, and break that profound silence of sense and spirit necessary for hearing the deep and delicate voice of God, who speaks to the heart in solitude; it is in profound peace and tranquillity that the soul is to listen to God, who will speak peace unto his people. When this takes place, when the soul feels that it is silent and listens, its loving attention must be most pure, without a thought of self, in a manner self-forgotten, so that it shall be wholly intent upon hearing; for thus it is that the soul is free and ready for that which our Lord requires at its hands.”[19]
We have sufficiently proved, we trust, that there is no reason to be disquieted by a certain verbal and merely apparent likeness between some parts of Father Baker’s spiritual doctrine and the errors of a false mysticism. We may, perhaps, return to this subject on a future occasion, and point out more distinctly and at length the true philosophical and theological basis of
Catholic mystical doctrine, in contrast with the travesties and perversions of its counterfeits in the extravagant, absurd, and revolting systems of infidel and heretical visionaries. At present a few words may suffice to sum up and succinctly define the difference between the true and the false doctrine in respect to the case in hand. That doctrine which is false, dangerous, and condemned by the unerring judgment of the holy church teaches that the love and pursuit of our own good and happiness, even in God, is sinful, or at least low and imperfect. It inculcates, as a means for suppressing and eradicating our natural tendency towards the attainment of the good as an end, and annihilating our self-activity, the cessation of all operation of the natural faculties of understanding and volition, at least in reference to God as our own supreme and desirable good. It inculcates a fixed, otiose quietude and indifference toward our own happiness or misery. Its effect is therefore to quench the life of the soul, to extinguish its light, and to reduce it to a state of torpor and apathy resembling that of a stoical Diogenes or an Indian fakir. Its pretence of disinterestedness and pure love to God for himself alone is wholly illusory and founded on a false view of God as the intrinsically sovereign good and the object of supreme love to the intelligent creature. The goodness of God as the first object of the love of complacency cannot be separated from the same goodness as the object of desire. The extrinsic glory of God as the chief end of creatures is identified with the exaltation and happiness of those intellectual and rational beings whom he has created
and elevated to a supernatural end. Hope, desire, and effort for the attainment of the good intended for and promised to man is a duty and obligation imposed by the law of God. It is impossible to love God and be conformed to his will without loving our neighbors, and our own soul as our nearest neighbor. Moreover, we are not saved merely by the action of God upon us passively received, but also by a concurrence of our understanding and will, a co-operation of our own active efforts with the working of God in us, or, as it is commonly expressed, by a diligent and faithful correspondence to grace. Not to desire our own true happiness is therefore a suicidal, idiotic folly. Not to work for it is presumption, ingratitude, and the deadly sin of sloth. Moreover, to attempt to fly with unfledged wings; to soar aloft in the sky among the saints when we ought to be walking on the earth, to undertake while yet weak beginners the heroic works of the perfect; to anticipate by self-will the time and call which God appoints, and pervert the orderly course of his providence; to strive by our own natural powers to accomplish what requires the special gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, is imprudent, contrary to humility, and full of peril. The dupe of false spirituality may, therefore, either take an entirely wrong road or attempt to travel the right road in a wrong manner; in either case sure to fail of reaching his intended goal, if he persists in his error.
The sound and orthodox doctrine of Catholic mystical theology presents God as he is in his own intrinsic essence, as the object of his own beatific contemplation, and of the contemplation of the blessed who have received the
faculty of intuitive vision by the light of glory. The nearest approach to this beatific state, as well as the most perfect and immediate preparation for it, is the state of quiet, tranquil contemplation of God by the obscure light of faith. The excellence and blessedness of this state consists in the pure love of God. It is of the nature of love and the intention of the mind toward the sovereign good, by which the will is directed in its motion toward the good which it loves and in the fruition of which it finds its repose, that the consideration of the object precede the consideration and desire of the fruition of the object. Liberatore, who is a good expositor of the doctrine of St. Thomas and all sound Catholic philosophers on this head, proposes and proves this statement in the clearest terms. The object is first apprehended and loved for its intrinsic goodness. Reflection on the enjoyment which is received and delight in this enjoyment, though a necessary consequence of the possession of the chief good, is the second but not the first act. St. John of the Cross teaches the same truth: “As the end of all is love, which inheres in the will, the characteristic of which is to give and not to receive, to the soul inebriated with love the first object that presents itself is not the essential glory which God will bestow upon it, but the entire surrender of itself to him in true love, without any regard to its own advantage. The second object is included in the first.”[20] Father Mazzella, S.J., of Woodstock College, in his admirable work on the infused virtues, makes a lengthened exposition of the distinction between that love of benevolence
and complacency toward God which is the principle of perfect contrition, and by itself takes away sin and unites the soul with God, and the love of desire which terminates on the good received from God. The first considers God as the sovereign good in himself; the second considers him directly and explicitly as the source and giver of good to us. It manifests itself as an efficacious desire for the rewards of everlasting life, accompanied by a fear of the punishment of sin in the future state, and is the principle of imperfect contrition or attrition, which of itself does not suffice for justification, though it is a sufficient condition for receiving grace through the appointed sacraments. The Catholic teachers of mystical theology direct the soul principally and as their chief purpose toward the higher and more perfect love. The second object is included in this first object, and taken for granted. It is not excluded, but comparatively neglected, because it follows of itself from the first, and is sought for by the natural, necessary law of our being, without any need of direct, explicit efforts. The resignation, forgetfulness of private interests, self-annihilation, so strongly recommended, do not denote any suppression or destruction of our natural beatific impulses, but only of our own personal notions, wishes, and interests in respect to such things as are merely means to the attainment of an end, a conformity of our will to the will of God, and an abandonment of solicitude respecting our own future happiness, founded on filial confidence in the wisdom and goodness of God.
It follows from this doctrine of sound, mystical writers that the quietude of the state of contemplation and union with God is totally
opposite to a condition of apathy and sloth. It is a state of more tranquil activity, of more steady and therefore more imperceptible yet more rapid movement. Previously the soul was like a boat propelled by oars against wind and tide. Now it is like a yacht sailing with a press of canvas under a strong and fair breeze.
So far as the imprudent misuse of mystical theology is concerned, we need not waste words on a truism of spiritual direction, that beginners and unlearned, inexperienced persons must follow the counsel of a guide, if they can have it. If not, they must direct themselves as well as they can by good books, which will instruct them gradually and soberly in the first principles of solid virtue and piety, and afterwards lead them on to perfection. They cannot have a better guide than Sancta Sophia. It is a book that will last for years, and even for a lifetime; for it is a guide along the whole way, from the gate at the entrance to the river of death, for such as are really and earnestly seeking to attain perfection by prayer, and desire to lead an interior life amid the external occupations, duties, and trials of their state in life, or even in the most strict cloistral seclusion. The exterior persecutions to which the church is subject, the disorders of the times, and the multifarious troubles of every kind, both outward and inward, to which great numbers of the best-disposed and most virtuous people are subjected, have an effect to throw thoughtful persons on the interior life as a refuge and solace. Pius IX., whose long experience and great sanctity, as well as his divine office, make him as a prophet of God to all devout Catholics, has told us that the
church is now going through the exercises of the purgative way as a preparation for receiving great gifts from the Holy Spirit, which will accompany a new and glorious triumph of the kingdom of Jesus Christ on the earth. Whatever external splendor the reign of Christ over this world may exhibit, it is in the hearts of men that his spiritual royalty has its seat. There is nothing on earth for which, so to speak, he really cares, except the growth of the souls of men. The world and the church were made for this purpose. The wisdom of the ancients was an adumbration of the truth, and that doctrine which teaches the full and complete form of it alone deserves to be called in the highest sense wisdom, and to win the love and admiration of all men for its celestial beauty.
[14] Sancta Sophia; or, Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation, etc. Extracted out of more than forty treatises written by the late Father Augustin Baker, a monk of the English Congregation of the Holy Order of St. Benedict; and methodically digested by R. F. Serenus Cressy. Doway, A.D. 1657. Now edited by the Very Rev. Dom Norbert Sweeney, D.D., of the same order and congregation. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
[15] P. 492, note.
[16] L’Abandon à la Providence Divine, pp. 164-167.
[17] Complete Works, Lewis’ Trans., vol. ii. p. 75.
[18] Ib. pp. 158, 159.
[19] Complete Works, etc., vol. ii. pp. 267-270.
[20] Complete Works, vol. ii. pp. 198, 199.